The potholes on the road to rebranding

Tue, 20 Sep 2016

Engaging too many, or too few. Losing the strategic view. Failing to brief your external suppliers. There are so many errors and obstacles organisations can encounter when deciding to rebrand. But what are some of the more common areas to be aware of? Here’s what you need to know:

Overlooking research

The world is moving at a rapid pace and the attitudes and perceptions your clients held last year may no longer be relevant this year. Discounting solid research at the outset of your re-branding journey means you will make decisions without having all the guiding strategic information and insights to hand.

Not engaging the right key stakeholders

It’s critical to have all your stakeholders buy into the brand journey if they are to live and breathe it. Providing the Board or Sales the opportunity to contribute will ensure a smoother path to the internal adoption of the brand. On the flipside, there is a fine line between engaging your key stakeholders and becoming overwhelmed with feedback from all the areas of your business.

Allowing personal preferences to get in the way

We’re all emotional about our own brands, but it’s important to remain objective when moving through the rebranding process. Remain objective about potential propositions and taglines and don’t bring personal preferences when developing the visual identity. You may not like purple but if purple is the colour that best achieves what you deemed important in the brief, then that’s what matters.

Not Googling it

Have your risk function evaluate new names to ensure intellectual property isn’t being infringed, and most importantly with new names: Google it. See what results come up to ensure you don’t align yourself with other entities or imagery that can damage your brand, and your reputation.

Thinking of your brand as a campaign

Taking on a campaign-only mindset may lead to dynamic, catchy taglines but it doesn’t enable the building of brand equity that will endure beyond the latest advertising trends. When moving through the rebrand process it’s important to remember that this is more than just a launch campaign – your brand is the guiding force behind every piece of advertising and marketing you do.

Breaking your own rules

Breaking brand guidelines as soon as you have them immediately fractures the visual foundation you’re building. How can you expect your internal teams and external suppliers to follow the guidelines if you don’t? It’s important to maintain the consistency of visual expression for maximum impact in your market.

Underestimating the internal transformation effort

It can be tempting to just roll your new brand out across all of your old elements, but what needs to be updated and what needs to be retired? What new assets do you need that you don’t currently have? And it’s not just marketing assets: your brand covers internal use, business documents, presentations, IT, recruitment and sponsorships. The danger is in underestimating this effort. Putting together a stakeholder working group should ensure your rebrand covers all the needs of your organisation.

Not briefing external suppliers fully

External suppliers can bring your brand to life via outstanding collateral; whether that involves signage or video content. Setting up a detailed briefing session between your agency and your external suppliers will prevent any design nuances from becoming lost in translation.

Not taking stock

Failing to track the influence and reaction your brand is having on an ongoing basis will mean you miss the opportunity to refine and improve incrementally. These incremental improvements will save you from having to undertake a costly overhaul further down the track, and the ongoing evaluation of your brand will keep you on top of what the market expects from your brand.

And, most importantly...

Not taking the time to care and nurture

Your brand needs constant care and attention, look for ways to grow and improve your brand reach, continue to embed the brand values in your team and continue to work with suppliers that are invested in your brand’s success. They are worth their weight in gold.